Putnam and Mercer were the only two counties in Ohio that Al Smith won, and they both trended hard toward Kennedy in 1960, though he narrowly lost them. They weren't very receptive to Kerry though, not surprisingly. Both were heavily Democratic until 1948.

Here’s a look at each party’s “high water mark”, ie. what a map would look like in a total blowout in each direction.

The first map is the Republican blow-out. In 2004, the Ohio Democrats scrambled to find a candidate after failing to draft Jerry Springer in a quixotic bid to take down the popular Republican incumbent George Voinovich. The eventually settled on Eric Fingerhut for what would be one of the most forgettable statewide elections in recent memory as Voinoich cruised to a 28-point victory, winning every county. Voinovich, the three term Republican mayor of Cleveland, has an opportunity to do something no other Republican can: actually win Cuyahoga County. With that, the map looks like a map of the locations in Ohio that have an ancestral Democratic presence. The most marginal areas are along the Democratic “backwards C” from the river to Toledo. There appears to be very little difference in Republican intensity between the counties that are always very strongly Republican and normally more marginal.

In 2006, the nation was on fire against George Bush and Ohio was even more on fire against Governor Bob Taft, who managed to get his approval rating into the single digits. No Republican would even pretend Taft was a competent governor. Incumbent GOP Senator Mike DeWine was a sitting duck against the very liberal populist Congressman Sherrod Brown.Brown cleaned up in the Southeast and the north, ensuring himself an easy victory. Unlike in the Republican blowout, this map still shows some strong pockets of GOP support, though it also wasn’t nearly as large of a blowout because the Republicans did have a decent candidate and Brown isn’t in the same league as Voinovich in terms of political clout. Holmes County, suburban Cincinnati, and the upper Miami Valley remained strongly GOP. These areas only swung about ten points while most of the state swung more than twenty. Another oddity of this map is that even though it was a Democratic blowout, DeWine still won Hamilton County, which is normally swingy.

In 2006, the nation was on fire against George Bush and Ohio was even more on fire against Governor Bob Taft, who managed to get his approval rating into the single digits. No Republican would even pretend Taft was a competent governor. Incumbent GOP Senator Mike DeWine was a sitting duck against the very liberal populist Congressman Sherrod Brown.Brown cleaned up in the Southeast and the north, ensuring himself an easy victory. Unlike in the Republican blowout, this map still shows some strong pockets of GOP support, though it also wasn’t nearly as large of a blowout because the Republicans did have a decent candidate and Brown isn’t in the same league as Voinovich in terms of political clout. Holmes County, suburban Cincinnati, and the upper Miami Valley remained strongly GOP. These areas only swung about ten points while most of the state swung more than twenty. Another oddity of this map is that even though it was a Democratic blowout, DeWine still won Hamilton County, which is normally swingy.

Wouldn't it be more appropriate to use Strickland's blowout victory over Ken Blackwell as the Democratic highwater mark? Strickland won a higher percentage of the vote and more counties than Brown did.

Also, even though Blackwell was a terrible candidate, he was mayor of Cincinnati for a brief period of time which could partially explain the Republican overperformance in Hamilton County in 2006.

Yes, you are correct Padfoot, this is a much better map for a Democratiuc high water mark. It allows us to see which counties will vote Republican no matter what the circumstances are. Of course, Blackwell actually did decently in Cincinnati because he was the mayor. The only counties that voted strongly for Blackwell were Mercer (but without its sibling Putnam this time), Hancock, Holmes, Warren, and Clermont. Warren and Clermont are the suburban Cincinnati Counties, Mercer and Holmes weve talked about quite a bit already, but we havent pointed out Hancock yet. Hancock is primarily city of Findlay, Ohio. Findlay has a unique history as the longtime home of Marathon Oil Company. Perhaps a connection to oil is the reason why Hancock was more Republican in 2006. After all, much of the national anger was directed at George W. Bush.

Voting trend between 2000 and 2008 presidential elections (Note: the trend is adjusted for the difference in the national totals between elections)

The first thing to notice is that the northwest swung strongly toward Obama. This area experienced a steep decline in manufacturing and a lot of people, either out of work or experiencing pay cuts, heard then Senator Obama express in heartfelt terms how he could be the man to change the course of the nation. Many northwest Ohioans heard him and wanted to give him a chance. However, this is likely a transitory trend; Northwest Ohio swung heavily toward Republicans in 2010 and in a recent Quinnipiac survey gave the President the lowest approval rating of any part of the state.

The next point is the trend of areas with large black populations toward the Democrats, primarily in Franklin and Hamilton Counties. Cuyahoga County, despite containing far more blacks than any other county, experienced only a small Democratic trend, probably because of a Republican trend on the blue-collar white west side.

Athens County and some of the surrounding counties experienced a huge Democratic trend. Athens trended more in the Democratic direction than any other county. This is unsurprising given Athens is in many ways Ohio’s most liberal county and home to a large college town.

Delaware County, Ohio’s fastest growing county, remained strongly Republican but much less so than in 2000. The suburban growth has transformed the area into a still Republican but less lopsided county. This may be the single worst piece of information for the GOP on the map.

The collection of counties with significant Amish populations (Holmes, Wayne, Ashland, Coshocton, Tuscarawas, and Geauga) also trended toward the Democrats though not that strongly. Perhaps McCain’s candidacy caused some enthusiasm problems compared with George W. Bush?

The four main areas that trended in the Republican direction are the upper Miami Valley, the southern tip of the state, the Steubenville/St. Clairsville area near the river, and the Mahoning Valley. The southern tip of the state is made up of rural, white, ancestrally Democratic evangelicals, so a Republican trend isn’t surprising. Jefferson and Belmont Counties are blue-collar declining industrial areas full of working class whites. The Mahoning Valley (Youngstown and Warren) trending Republican may become an important headline in the future if it continues because it is a populous area that has historically voted for Democrats by lopsided margins.

The oddball county I can’t explain the Republican trend in is Clark County (Springfield). Springfield is in part a college town for a liberal arts institution and also contains a sizeable black population. Clark County is historically moderate because of some very Republican rural areas and heavily Democratic Springfield. All in all, it seems like a county that should have trended toward President Obama but it trended significantly in the other direction.

The collection of counties with significant Amish populations (Holmes, Wayne, Ashland, Coshocton, Tuscarawas, and Geauga) also trended toward the Democrats though not that strongly. Perhaps McCain’s candidacy caused some enthusiasm problems compared with George W. Bush?

Remember that the Amish, though otherwise socially ultra-conservative (like, off the charts), are pacifists. This certainly isn't enough to get the Old Order Amish to vote Democrat (indeed, many don't vote at all), but there is a certain constituency of people who are more integrated into modern life but have an Anabaptist cultural background who are basically conservative but would sympathize with the D's on Iraq. Notice also that Lancaster PA and Elkhart IN have a very large Obama swing.

The collection of counties with significant Amish populations (Holmes, Wayne, Ashland, Coshocton, Tuscarawas, and Geauga) also trended toward the Democrats though not that strongly. Perhaps McCain’s candidacy caused some enthusiasm problems compared with George W. Bush?

Remember that the Amish, though otherwise socially ultra-conservative (like, off the charts), are pacifists. This certainly isn't enough to get the Old Order Amish to vote Democrat (indeed, many don't vote at all), but there is a certain constituency of people who are more integrated into modern life but have an Anabaptist cultural background who are basically conservative but would sympathize with the D's on Iraq. Notice also that Lancaster PA and Elkhart IN have a very large Obama swing.

That doesn't explain why they voted so strongly for George W. Bush in 2004. If anything I would guess that a conservative pacifist would have voted for Kerry and McCain rather than the other way around.

The collection of counties with significant Amish populations (Holmes, Wayne, Ashland, Coshocton, Tuscarawas, and Geauga) also trended toward the Democrats though not that strongly. Perhaps McCain’s candidacy caused some enthusiasm problems compared with George W. Bush?

Remember that the Amish, though otherwise socially ultra-conservative (like, off the charts), are pacifists. This certainly isn't enough to get the Old Order Amish to vote Democrat (indeed, many don't vote at all), but there is a certain constituency of people who are more integrated into modern life but have an Anabaptist cultural background who are basically conservative but would sympathize with the D's on Iraq. Notice also that Lancaster PA and Elkhart IN have a very large Obama swing.

That doesn't explain why they voted so strongly for George W. Bush in 2004. If anything I would guess that a conservative pacifist would have voted for Kerry and McCain rather than the other way around.

But Kerry was for the Iraq war, unlike Obama. The people I'm thinking of are not interested in the nuances of "bringing in our allies".

I'll fully admit that I'm pretty tentative about this explanation in the case of the Ohio counties - I'm more confident about Lancaster and Elkhart, since the swing is much larger there (as well as large Obama primary victories, which again you don't see in Ohio), and they have more liberal Mennonites living there, of a sort I have some personal experience with. I don't have such a handle on the Ohio communities, which seem to be more just strict old order Amish and then people who aren't Anabaptist at all. So it's possible that the trend is caused by something completely different here. But it is a real phenomenon in the Amish/Mennonite community nationwide.

TJ, this is a great thread. I read somewhere that one key reason for Ohio being more GOP leaning than Michigan historically is that in Ohio the working class is spread out in many smaller cities. In Michigan the Detroit area concentrated huge amounts of working class voters back in the auto heyday, and this led to a more cohesive pro-democrat vote, according to this theory. In Ohio, the dispersal of workers all over the state made them more likely to associate with more people from different classes etc, and less likely to vote Democratic.

I decided to try and create an ideological index for each county, separating economic and social interests. I included the 2000 and 2008 presidential election and the 2010 gubernatorial race in both scores, the vote total on Issue 2 and the current unemployment rate on the economic index, and the 2004 gay marriage referendum, the number of abortions (in 2007) per 10000 people (using 2008 population estimates), and the percentage of people in each county that are religiously unaffiliated for the social index. I hoped to catch a wide array of factors in doing this though it’s difficult to measure vague concepts like ideology. Lower scores indicate a more conservative county and higher ones indicate a liberal county. The average economic score was 50 and the average social score was 46 (the average without weighting for the population of each county).

Here’s the economic map:

The most conservative county was Holmes, followed by Mercer and the most liberal county was Athens, followed by Mahoning. The fiscally progressive areas form the characteristic backwards ‘C’ over the Eastern part of the state (which we see pretty consistently).

And here’s the social map:

The most conservative county was Mercer, followed by Putnam, with Holmes and Auglaize not far behind. The most liberal county was Athens, followed by Cuyahoga.

I was hoping the maps would show some sort of contrast: ie. counties that came out differently by each measure. Much of the state appears fairly similar on both maps, but a few areas stand out. The counties along the Ohio River are more conservative socially than fiscally. The same with the extreme northwest corner of the state. Mahoning County (Youngstown) also is much more socially moderate despite being the second most fiscally liberal county in the state. The Columbus and Cincinnati suburbs are more conservative fiscally than socially, as are Greene, Portage, and Summit Counties. I don’t think this technique is a great way of comparing Holmes County to Mercer and Putnam in some sort of running for which is more conservative since it’s really comparing apples to oranges, although it is evident that Putnam County is more fiscally moderate than Mercer and Holmes.

TJ, I had mentioned in a thread months ago that OH-11 was the best CD against the gay marriage ban. Are the white areas of OH-11 especially liberal or are the black areas less anti-gay than expected?

I would guess that the whites in Shaker Heights, Cleveland Heights, etc. are the most socially liberal people in Ohio, save maybe the college-related people in Athens or government workers living in downtown Columbus. Case Western is a pretty big college, too.

Most of the black areas were about 50-60% for the ban (not sure how that compares to expected). But, yes the white areas in OH-11 are very, very liberal. OH-11 includes both the really large red clump of precincts and the other liberal area near downtown. Considering how Columbus is chopped up, I'd be rather surprised if OH-11 wasn't the most liberal congressional district on the issue. However, I would bet the ban did worse the new Columbus pack district.

TJ, I had mentioned in a thread months ago that OH-11 was the best CD against the gay marriage ban. Are the white areas of OH-11 especially liberal or are the black areas less anti-gay than expected?

I would guess that the whites in Shaker Heights, Cleveland Heights, etc. are the most socially liberal people in Ohio, save maybe the college-related people in Athens or government workers living in downtown Columbus. Case Western is a pretty big college, too.

Agree with everything except Case Western being a pretty big college. It only has about 4,000 undergrads. Also, the Case precincts were more (not that it's saying much) in favor of the ban than most of the white parts of Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights.

Here’s the progression of congressional results from the past decade. You can see how well that last gerrymander worked to keep a 12-6 map for most of the decade until things went awry in 2006 after Bob Ney (OH-18) ended up in prison.

One thing I noticed was that the black areas in Hamilton County were much more liberal on gay marriage than the black areas in Cuyahoga County. There were a large number of black precincts that voted against the ban whereas in Cleveland pretty much every black precinct voted for it.

Cincinnati also has quite a few majority black precincts that vote for Obama with rather underwhelming margins. In Cleveland, pretty much every black precinct is very, very heavily Obama.

Could somebody explain how the white liberal areas are in Cleveland and Cincy? What kind of people live there?

I don't know much about Cincy, but there are three main clusters of white liberals in the Cleveland area. The largest is most of the eastern suburbs, Cleveland Heights, Shaker Heights, Beachwood, Pepper Pike, Orange, and Moreland Hills. Pepper Pike, Orange, and Moreland Hills, are extremely wealthy areas with large estates. They aren't monolithically liberal, but are socially liberal in particular, although you can easily find conservatives there too. Beachwood is predominantly Jewish and Jews often are very liberal. Shaker Heights is a family-oriented bastion of progressivism and has an unusual history as the first planned suburb in the United States. It has very high taxes and very good schools. Cleveland Heights, my home ironically, is an aging hippy/hipster area and probably the most liberal area in Cleveland. The entire area has a certain level of progressive flair: I often see outlandish bumperstickers, the mascot of one of the elementary schools is "The Peacemakers", and we even have a Communist book store.

Downtown and the near west side have a lot of gentrified areas full of young professionals, the stereotypical latte-liberals, but the west side also has some degree of ancestral conservative Democrat pedigree to it. For example, you'll see a lot of religious symbols and there are conservatives who live there too even if the majority is pretty liberal. Ohio City is a bit less gentrified and there are many poor people living not too far from the luxurious new condominiums and developments. Tremont is really artistic. Edgewater and Lakewood are home to a large gay population and a lot of hipsters, but you will also find a substancial conservative minority in those areas and a lot of blue-collar Irish Catholics.

Would it be possible to do a map on the differential between the SOS race (Husted) and the gubernatorial race (Kasich)? I am curious why Husted did so much better than the other Republicans in 2010.

I can make a map, but Husted wasn't even the Republican who won by the largest statewide margin, State Treasurer Josh Mandel was. My guess as to why Attorney General and Governor were closer than the other two races is that they included higher profile and more controversial candidates. Strickland was a so-so governor and Kasich wasn't terribly popular even at the time of the election. DeWine was a former US Senator who made a few enemies, or at least more than Mandel or Husted, who both won comfortably as "Generic Republican" in a wave year.

Here is the 2008 Congressional election by county and by district:This map has the vote in counties containing multiple districts totaled:And this one just has lines drawn in at the loss of the total county vote:

Compare this election to the maps above. This is a bloodbath in the opposite direction as four ConservaDems are elected to seats they don't end up holding after 2010. There is a characteristic backwards-C shape of Democratic areas common to many Ohio elections: along Lake Erie, the eastern border, and along the Ohio River. The southeast is very heavily Democratic. In all of OH-6 and OH-18, Holmes and Knox are the only Republican counties. OH-16 was nearly swept by Boccieri despite containing several normally Republican counties. Kaptur and Sutton both won every county by comfortable margins. Ryan carried his part of Mahoning County with 87%.

Still, the western half of the state was heavily Republican, as was Steve LaTourette's district.

Can you do the same for the 2008 Presidential election?

Logged

"George Bush supports abstinence. Lucky Laura."- sign seen at the March for Women's Lives, 4/25/04

Would it be possible to do a map on the differential between the SOS race (Husted) and the gubernatorial race (Kasich)? I am curious why Husted did so much better than the other Republicans in 2010.

I can make a map, but Husted wasn't even the Republican who won by the largest statewide margin, State Treasurer Josh Mandel was. My guess as to why Attorney General and Governor were closer than the other two races is that they included higher profile and more controversial candidates. Strickland was a so-so governor and Kasich wasn't terribly popular even at the time of the election. DeWine was a former US Senator who made a few enemies, or at least more than Mandel or Husted, who both won comfortably as "Generic Republican" in a wave year.

The reason I ask, is that the redistricting contest used the Governor, Secretary of State, and Auditor race from the 2010 election and the 2008 presidential race as their measure of partisanship. Because 3 races were included were from 2010, about 2/3 of the vote was from 2010 (turnout in 2010 was about 2/3 of 2008). This in itself introduces a bias.

Since the purpose was to produce "competitive" congressional races, the underlying model (at least in part) was assuming voters in a congressional district would be as likely to vote for generic Republican as they did Husted. The only thing that I found was that Husted's opponent had been portrayed as a gun grabber because when she was a member of the Columbus city council she had favored letting Columbus have its own regulations on carrying guns, such that someone who was legal in their part of the state would commit a felony by driving into Columbus.

So I was wondering if there was some sort of rural bias towards Husted, particularly in the fairly balanced areas in SE Ohio.